Resourceful Repurposing Setting Your Creative Spirit Free

As you probably know y now, I love old vintage things. Anything from furniture, tools, industrial pieces, and home decor. One thing I’m always drawn to is the old hand tools. I’ve always thought the old hand drills were pretty neat, and I love to check them out. I wanted one, but I just didn’t know what to do with it. Then I stumbled upon Funky Junk Interiors, and got the idea from her. She does some pretty amazing things. With God on our side, I had a coworker/friend who gave us her dad’s old hand drill. How nice is that? Here she is with our son at his graduation a year ago.

I took the inspiration from Funky Junk Interiors, some old fence boards, and got started on it. I measured the drill to determine how big the crate would be, and from these measurements I cut all the pieces with a miter saw.

The next step was to use the finish nailer to build the bottom box.

Next I needed to drill holes in the top of the sides for the drill to slip into for the handle. The actual handle part had to have a slit cut in the wood so it would slide down in to it. The other end was just screwed together once it was through the hole. Then it was all nailed together with the finish nailer.

This week our daughter had a need to be creative, so I found a piece I bought Texas Antiques Week. I found this and knew it would be perfect with the seed bin.

First she gathered supplies. Some scrapbook paper and Tim Holtz grunge letters.

She took this vintage sign stand and began cutting paper to fit in the top. Next she punched out the letters she needed ad painted them yellow so that they would show up on the sign.

She glued the letters on and then assembled it. It was like what I had in my mind, only better because my daughter made it! Plus it looks amazing on top of the seed bin, and adds a touch of fun. It’s kind of hard to get everything in a picture, so here is one from a distance and one up close.

It is perfect with a few imperfections that add a little whimsy to it. I’m just proud that she did the whole thing and was being creative. Now I just need to get on a painted sign, picture, or something to go to the right of that big clock.

Oh my goodness was I surprised and excited today. I was linking up one of my posts and started looking at my blog stats. Here is where I’m in a major learning curve, because I know the minimum in this category. Well I stumbled on something……I’m featured over on Knockoff Decor! Cue the happy dance!!

You have got to go check out her site if you have never been there. It’s amazing! I follow her on Facebook, and usually visit her site 2-3 times a week. However, I’ve been busy and hadn’t checked on it in over a week. So I totally missed it.

Just a short post to share my excitement on my new adventure in blog land. Thanks for reading and sharing in my excitement.

We have seen, drooled over, seed bins at many flea markets over the years. They were always really long or big enough to be a kitchen island. Every time we would see one we would try really hard to figure out how it would work, but in the end we would leave empty-handed. Until while in Austin, TX, we stumbled upon one. Smaller, check, good shape, check, wouldn’t stick out too far from the wall, check, and reasonable price, check. After a little happy dance, we seized the deal.

We loaded it up, brought it home, and went to work cleaning it up.

I cleaned it up using just plain ol’ soap and water, and a shop vac. (Excuse the HUGE mess in the background, Operation Shed Clean Up is being planned as I write.) Then I went over the wood with Old English furniture oil in the lighter color.

This bin has an original decal in the lower right corner drawer! Nothing like a little piece of history still remaining.

Next came the hunt for some vintage looking seed packets that didn’t cost a small fortune. I finally found some cute vintage looking ones at Lowe’s.

I just taped each seed packet to the see through window. I thought about pouring seeds and beans in the front portion like they used to, but then we decided open seeds equals bugs here in the country. Yuck!

I now use this to hold cake decorating stuff (cupcake Liners, milk bottles, and a few other odds and ends). I love the look in our house, the extra storage, and the old farm country look. Now we can check that item off our list! I just have to keep from using it to hold my purse, keys, and mail when I walk in the door.

I’ve started collecting yard sticks, because one day I want to have enough to cover the top of a table. I always see them, but the size is never what I need. So being the true DIY’ers that we are, we just say “We will just do our own”.

As I was looking for something to keep these in I came across this little gem that I used in our son’s room to store toys. (Here’s when I realize time flies because that was 15 years ago.)

His room was done in a western theme, because he was all about the bull riding and Walker Texas Ranger back then. However, this is not what the style I was looking for now. But hey, nothing a little paint job can’t fix. So out comes the chalk paint. I decided on white because I knew exactly what was going on there.

After it was painted and waxed, I gathered up a few things we’ve been buying as we see awesome Texas Country Music Artist, go to a cool store, or just find something that speaks to us. So here is what I gathered up.

Oh yea, you know we are huge Junk Gypsy fans (our daughter has a true gypsy heart already at age 14) and Casey Donahew fans. Plus we love listening to lots of Texas Country Artists (Matt Stell for one), Miranda Lambert, Dierks, Blake, Luke, and tons of other country artists. I decided to put these stickers all over this little barrel to represent all the fun times we’ve had. I just realized we didn’t get a Pink Pistol sticker to put on there. I guess it’s another mom and daughter trip to go back there. You can read about our trip there here.

I put the stickers on with Modge Podge. I had two that were made out of a material that was a little stubborn about sticking, so I just applied a little tacky glue to the back.

Once the Modge Podge dried it was ready to hold the yard sticks I’ve accumulated so far. So here it is all finished, reminding us fun family times, and storing my yard sticks.

(Sorry these pictures look a little blurry, but when I pull them up individually on the computer they look fine. Not sure what I’m doing wrong here.)

Hopefully one day I’ll have this sucker covered in stickers. I better start hitting the Texas Artist trail a little more! Plus I still have a whole lotta yard sticks to gather up. If you have any extra’s at your house that you’re not using send them my way for another project to see.

Sorry it’s been a while since I last posted. I’ve been super busy helping my daughter with FFA stuff as she runs for District Officer. Along with gathering old airplane pictures my son has taken to send to him in college for a research paper. Talk about a walk down memory lane.

Well, this project took us a few days to complete because we have been so busy. So once again we took our Warrenton finds (you can read about our trip there here), more spoons and an old belt.

Step 1 was to cut the buckle end off the belt, then take it and measure the length around her wrist. You have to allow an overlap to accommodate the snap that will close it. Once you cut the appropriate length, just sit it aside while you work on the spoon.

The beginning process of the spoon is basically the same as the necklace we made. You can read about it here. We flattened the spoon, and then cut the handle off with a zip cut right where it attached to the spoon part. Then we ground that edge to make it follow the curve of the spoon.

I have to digress here a minute and explain that our daughter is in high school, and is at that time in her life where she is trying to find her place. She is trying different school activities trying to find what her passion is so she can choose a career that she will go to college for. Also in high school comes the peer pressure issues and drama with friends and classmates. All this led to her in choosing the words to stamp into the spoon. She chose “Follow Your Arrow”.

At this point we cleaned this spoon with a very fine steel wool and then stamped the words in to the spoon. I chose a curvy line for the word “follow” to illustrate going down a path.

I bought a snap kit and rivet kit from Hancock Fabrics to assemble the bracelet. We also added a concho I already had on hand. To add all of this you have to use a leather punch to punch holes in the leather so the snap and rivets will go through the belt. I also had to curve the spoon and concho to the curve of her wrist.

Here is the finished project.

You can see here on the back where the rivets and concho were screwed in. You can’t even feel it when you have it on.

I think it turned out really cute, and I know my daughter will get lots of wear out of it. I will probably even be borrowing it!

We were really busy this weekend with finally cleaning the house (it was in desperate need), doing the first mowing of the season, spraying the weeds, and finally starting on our projects from the goods we bought on our trip to Texas Antiques Week. Click over here and you can read about our trip.

Here is one of the purchases we made for $3, a vintage spoon with great patina.

We were looking for these because our daughter wanted a necklace that was inspired by all the spoon art we were seeing there.

First, we took the lace I had purchased at Hobby Lobby, and put in some tea to give it a vintage stain.

As the lace was brewing, her dad flattened out the spoon and bent the handle to make a loop for the necklace. Then I went to work punching a saying she had chosen. (She obviously has the dandelion spring fever like me, as you will see in the finished project.)

This is a metal punch set I bought at Harbor Freight awhile back (if you go get one make sure you take a coupon). You have to punch on a firm surface, and only hit firmly once so the punch doesn’t move. You don’t have to be perfect on your letter placement, because everything we saw in Warrenton wasn’t perfect. That’s what gives it some character! She also wanted a little bling, so we glued on a small strip of rhinestone to the top.

Here is her finished necklace. She loves it and is picking out the perfect outfit to wear it with! Not bad for our first attempt.

We love the vintage look of it, along with the hand stamped letters. It has so much character and love in it.

If you are interested in the process of flattening out the spoon, leave me a comment and get back with you.